Housing

A Providence neighborhood through a Statehouse window

The DOJ’s RealPage lawsuit shows the sloppy thinking behind progressive activism.

By Justin Katz | September 11, 2024 |

As I understand it, RealPage offers landlords software for renting out and managing their properties.  Like other such software across industries, it uses automation and analytics to help its clients conceptualize their assets and their businesses and squeeze out inefficiencies.  Among those services is an algorithm that uses local real estate data, including from its…

Depicting Aaron Regunberg's fantasy of Harris and Walz as cop-parents at the door

Politics This Week: Progressive Parent Figures

By Justin Katz | August 14, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz review the political talk of the week in Rhode Island and nationally.

A water drop and ripples

Forced integration is not the way to solve segregated outcomes.

By Justin Katz | May 28, 2024 |

The problem at the heart of well-meaning progressive policies is that they tend to ignore second-order effects.  They want outcome X, so they push policy U and ignore that side-effects V and W also happen, and consequences Y and Z might not prove desirable.  Housing mandates, for example, require on their face that we cede…

A mechanic stares down a destroyed machine

Interest rates have become like rent control.

By Justin Katz | April 25, 2024 |

And they’re both artificial thresholds created by interventionist policies.  realEstateTrent makes a great point, here:   Progressive policies, which shift decision-making to the blunt tool of government, create these unhealthy thresholds everywhere.  People stay on the public dole because they’d have to earn so much money for a job to be worthwhile that no job…

A man dreams of depopulation.

Land use may be the dog that’s not barking in the housing debate.

By Justin Katz | April 24, 2024 |

Catching up on email, I came across this October article from the American Stewards of Liberty about a federal push for conservation areas: The Service is planning to acquire 250,000 acres of private land in the new federally designated area by offering “voluntary” conservation easements in perpetuity to landowners. Those who do not want to…

A water drop and ripples

Progressive policies only seek to manage increasing hostilities and problems.

By Justin Katz | April 24, 2024 |

The headline of a Alexa Gagosz’s recent Boston Globe article asks, “Will tenants unions make a difference in Rhode Island’s housing crisis?”  The answer, we can be confident, is “yes,” although it will make a difference by making it worse. The state’s problem is insufficient housing, and the only durable, healthy way to give tenants,…

A healthcare panel gives thumbs down.

Politics This Week: Under Their Thumb

By Justin Katz | April 1, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz warn of growing government control and corruption.

Fictional movie poster for Day of Reckoning

Politics This Week: Day of Reckoning!

By Justin Katz | March 18, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz explore who can expect days of reckoning in Rhode Island.

A homeless mother pushes a baby carriage in Providence, RI

The details are the important part in the “housing crisis.”

By Justin Katz | March 13, 2024 |

By its nature, advocacy journalism glosses over the details that many would consider crucial.  Headlines from a pair of such articles by Katie Mulvaney in the Providence Journal illustrate the point: Six months pregnant with nowhere to go – an unhoused woman’s plight on RI’s streets After months of sleeping on the street, pregnant woman finally…

Suburban house with a slot machine on the side

We react to increases in housing prices in exactly the wrong way.

By Justin Katz | February 28, 2024 |

Lance Lambert, who appears to be a reporter on the housing beat, shared a table of increases in housing prices in the 50 largest metro areas.  As the following snip from the table shows, Providence experienced the third-largest increase over the past year: Various contextual points are important to remember.  Metros can vary in size,…